Election

I wanted Ben to have some understanding of the presidential election so over the past couple of weeks we've read books about George Washington and Washington, D.C., watched some videos about the White House on the internet, etc.  On Tuesday, Ben and Mollie went with me to vote, of course, and I let Ben make the selections (with my guidance) on the touch screen voting machine.

 On Tuesday night Ben decided to hold his own presidential election.  Red Monkey and Brownie were running for president.  He filled these two containers with ballots. 

Red Monkey won and now lives in Monkey A B (the monkey version of Washington D.C.).  Notice how he's sitting in his office beside his bowlful of winning ballots.  Brownie, now vice president, has the job of guard.  Brownie has a couple of pieces of paper taped to him because he's still wearing his Super Dog costume from Halloween.

Zoo Trip

 Last Saturday Ben, Mollie, and I went on the annual nursery zoo trip with our church to Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

 Trying to get them to pose for a picture in front of the elephant fountain.  Ben was very interested in the map.  He marked off each place as we visited it.

 He also took lots of pictures including this up close look at a baby alligator that we got to pet.

Mollie, of course, needed to take pictures too.  This is what most of hers look like.

 They always love brushing the goats and sheep.  Notice that the goat they are brushing is sound asleep.

 Mollie wanted her picture taken sitting on this rock.

 Climbing up the roots of big tree with friends.

 After lunch Mollie was getting fussy needing a nap.  I bought them both strawberry snowballs and suddenly they were happy again.

 Riding the Endangered Species Carousel.

Halloween on Sesame Street

 Ben decided they would be Bert and Ernie for Halloween a couple of months ago.  It turns out that no one makes Bert and Ernie costumes for children.  There were one of each available on Ebay from 1979.  We passed on the retro costumes and made our own.  Nana made their shirts and MawMaw made their masks.  Last year I threw a costume together at the last minute so this year I planned ahead and bought a Cookie Monster t-shirt and made a googly eye headband.

 This is how they ended up wearing their masks since they didn't like having them covering their faces. 

 Our first stop, next door to see Mrs. Judy and Mr. Gerald.

 Getting candy from Mrs. Judy and Lucy (her chihuahua).

A few houses down we met up with Ben's good friend Sam (a Ninja Turtle) and his dad.  Sam wanted to join us trick-or-treating so John headed down the street with kids while I returned home to hand out candy.  They arrived back at home with buckets full of candy an hour and a half later.  They had gone down our street and then down to the next neighhood.  They came home laughing about Ben who had dropped a Skittle.  He didn't want to lose that Skittle so he reached down and picked it up off the ground.  He quickly spit out the Skittle-sized rock that he had accidentally put in his mouth.

Fall Festival

After Rylee's birthday party, we went to the fall festival at Mama's church.

 Mrs. Katie painted a duck on one cheek and a deer on the other.  Mrs. Katie was my Sunday School teacher nearly my entire childhood it seems.  Ben LOVES Mrs. Katie.  She was his VBS teacher when we went with Mama two years ago and he hasn't forgotten.  He's told me at least a dozen times since we've been home that Mrs. Katie was sitting in the chair across from him at the end of the cake walk.  (We won a chocolate chip cookie cake, by the way.)

 Mollie decorating her pumpkin.

 Ben, Mollie, Emalee, and Rylee posing for a fall pic.

 Ben and Mama pumpkin racing.

 Mollie wanted to keep the duck.

 Spinning, spinning, spinning with Emalee.

 Ben took these pictures of Emalee and Rylee with their faces painted.

After roasting weinies outside on a fire, we went on a hayride.  I sent Mollie home with Mama after Mollie declared she was hot, stripped her shirt off and laid in the floor of the fellowship hall refusing to put her shirt back on.  The hayride went past Mama and Daddy's house, so Ben and I got off there.  I'm pretty sure that Ben fell asleep along the way but he swears that he didn't.

Birthday Party

This weekend we went home for Rylee's birthday party.  Ben particularly loves going to visit MawMaw and PawPaw.  When we drove up at the house, he said, "This is my favorite place." This time Mollie didn't want to leave.  After driving four hours, when we turned onto our street she said, "I don't want to go this way.  I want to go to MawMaw's."

Peter and Tink

We've been watching Disney movies on Friday nights. Can you guess what we watched last night? Ben created his own Peter Pan outfit while Mollie got this awesome Tinker Bell costume from Janey. Mollie ran around saying, "I fly in the sky. I fly in the sky." She is very interested in watching airplanes when they fly over. The other day I asked her if she would like to fly in an airplane. She responded, "I jump out." She wants to parachute out of an airplane not just ride in it. That sums up Mollie pretty well.

 Ben has been in his Peter Pan costume all day.  Mollie's changed costumes a few times including being a pirate for a while. 

 Mollie's "Aaaarrrrgh Matey" face.

Ben's drawing of Peter Pan.

Goodbye Beach

 After we took down our tent and loaded all our stuff, we made one last ride down to the beach.

 These are black bear tracks that you could see in the sand dunes from the boardwalk.

 Goodbye beach.

We rode right by this deer standing on the side of the road.  She wasn't the least bit afraid of us or our bicycles.